


Untitled: House post-infarction

by bironic



Series: Sestinas by bironic [1]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Explicit Language, Gen, Poetry, Sestina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-06
Updated: 2006-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bironic/pseuds/bironic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being crippled against one's will is in fact worse than being dead, he concludes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled: House post-infarction

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Three Stories."
> 
> Prompts: painkiller, Stacy, fuck, nerves, dead, laugh
> 
> To quote Eddie Izzard, the infrastructure's fucked. In other words, screwed up the order of the end-words on this one. But I liked the stanzas enough to leave it alone.
> 
> A University of Northern Iowa web page mentions [the obsession that underlies the sestina](http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/sestina.html) because of its constant return to the same words. I think that's what makes this form so fitting for House.

Being crippled against one's will is in fact worse than being dead,  
He concludes. Six days of this hell called recovery and his nerves  
Are frayed beyond repair (metaphorically and physically; he'd laugh  
If he wasn't afraid he'd start sobbing). So are Stacy's—  
She's smoking again—but he doesn't have the energy to give a fuck  
About anyone as he lies in his hospital bed numbing himself with painkillers.

Of course, he wouldn't need the IV or the antibiotics or the painkillers  
If they had let him ride it out once he'd gone under instead of laughing  
In his comatose face, scooping out muscle and slicing nerves  
Despite knowing full well he wanted the idiots to stay the hell out. Stacy  
Cries her excuses (_You would have died, for a minute you were dead_),  
Cuddy checks in and Wilson visits, and he wishes everyone would leave him the fuck

Alone for a change. Fuck Stacy for betraying him and fuck  
Cuddy for encouraging her. Yeah, maybe he'd be dead  
But now he has to live with a ruined leg and raw nerves  
That no sympathy or rehab or _walking aid_ or painkiller  
Can heal. He's the one who's fucking crippled, not Stacy  
Sitting there with smudged mascara looking as if she'll never laugh

Again. Except then she barks the most bitter, incredulous laugh  
He's heard from her as she loses her patience and has the nerve  
To snap _For God's sake, Greg, would you rather be dead?_  
He thinks Why not—he can't walk, can't drive, can't fuck,  
Can't stand the sight of his goddamn painkillers  
And his goddamn concave thigh and goddamn Stacy

Who did this to him. So he lobs a pill bottle at Stacy's  
Head and shouts _What's the opposite of painkiller_  
_Because that's you_ and laughs  
And keeps laughing because what the fuck  
Else can he do when his leg's half-dead  
And what's left comprises a minefield of detonating nerves?

He turns away from her, wondering whether the nerve  
Damage or the helplessness will break him first. It doesn't take long for Stacy  
To heave a frustrated sob and leave the room. He can't reach his painkillers  
But he refuses to press the call button. His breath hitches when he laughs  
This time. His throat feels tight. His cheeks are wet. _Baby. Like a fucking  
Baby_, says his father's voice in his head. _Men don't cry._ Dead

Men don't feel pain. His nerves fire as if on cue. Though it hurts like fuck  
It distracts him from visions of Stacy leaving for good. He wheezes a final laugh.  
If he takes enough painkillers, maybe he can forget how peaceful it felt to be dead.


End file.
